Just my thoughts on all things Soccer.
"I guess I've never viewed soccer as some sort of controlled substance. To me, it's probably more like Nutella. The rest of the world clearly loves it and puts it on almost everything, but here in America we're like, "I don't know, man, it tastes like almonds."

Friday, April 28, 2006

Roster Claus is coming to town

The Bruce is making his list and checking it twice this final weekend before he plays the role of jolly, old Roster Claus (pictured).

While waiting to find out which 23 Papa Arena will take to Germany, why not read up on the best coach ever, as Grant Wahl adds more information to his story about Arena, which can be found in the current issue of Sports Illustrated. He gets some great quotes from players and coaches a like. The best thing, it even brings up what some people consider his weakest skill.

In a sense, it doesn't really matter whether Arena is or isn't a genius, as long as his players feel that way. Keep in mind, though, that they view him as a team-building genius, not necessarily an X's-and-O's genius. I also asked players: When guys complain about Arena, what do they complain about?

"The only times I've heard guys complain about Bruce, and I would agree, is in certain circumstances where we haven't played the right way tactically," says Donovan. "I think Bruce would admit it. Like the first Mexico qualifier in Azteca [in '05] when we played a 4-3-3. We all bought into it, but after the game it was like, Why would he do that? We adjusted in the second half and got back into the game, but it was too late.... But it also works the other way. Against Mexico we'd played a 4-4-2 for forever heading into the ['02] World Cup, but when we played them there he decided to play a 3-5-2 and it worked brilliantly."

You can even read up on his biggest regret from 2002 and who would have taken the pk against Germany if the ref had correctly made the call against Mr. Handball in the Box, Torsten Frings.